Friday 31 July 2020

Coronavirus diary, Friday 31 July



Care homes - the most controversial subject in the pandemic crisis -  has gathered impetus as an issue with a scathing parliamentary report criticising the government.

The cross party Public Accounts Committee condemned the discharging of elderly hospital patients in England without Covid-19 testing into care homes as 'reckless'.

They went further, calling it 'an appalling error'.

The situation with care homes in England had clearly been an emerging problem, according to official advice before it was belatedly changed, it said.

Meg Hillier, the committee chairman, said there was a long term  lack of understanding of the potential care homes problem. 
Lack of central control and the division  of responsibilities between the  NHS, local government and private and not for profit homes had compounded the problems, the report concluded.

It had squandered the opportunity to 'build up supplies of PPE -personal protection equipment - in January and February, and changed the guidance to care homes forty times, leading to confusion.

It  had over promised and under delivered, further exacerbating the situation.

The Financial Times said that by the government's inconsistency and at times negligence, care homes had effectively been 'thrown to the wolves'. 

The government's response was that  it had been 'working  closely with the sector'.

The committee has called on the government to review the situation in September. 

The total number of deaths in Wales to mid July was 2,501, with Cardiff the highest at 381. 

The total in Wales care homes was 826, just over 20% of all coronavirus deaths.

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